Water softening systems have been developed and widely used in domestic homes of countries in which water having high minerals content or so called “hard water” is supplied. In a typical water softening system such as an ion exchange water softener, the “hard ions” are generally removed by passing the “hard water” through a water softening cylinder in which an ion exchange medium is located. The medium exchanges the “hard ions” such as calcium or magnesium ions with “soft ions” such as sodium ions.
When all the available “soft ions” in the medium are depleted after a period of water softening, the medium can be regenerated by eluting the cylinder with a salt solution such as a brine solution. The brine is typically prepared and stored in a brine tank, in which salt in its various forms such as pellets, granules or lumps will be added to from time to time so as to maintain the salinity of the brine. Salts of these common forms are widely available and are relatively easy to handle, however, with known disadvantages including that they create void spaces known as interstices. For example, granular salts would typically have 30% by volume of void spaces within the interstices, and common tablet salts would typically have 50% of void spaces within the interstices. These void spaces take up unnecessary volume in the brine tank and therefore, sizes of the traditional brine tanks are generally larger than need be. Furthermore, use of the common forms of salt can result in spillages and can require devices such as funnels to aid replenishment of salt into the brine tank.